The event is free and open to the public.
Blier started Landworks Studio in 1996 and has been the director of design for every building project on which the firm has worked, including the Court Square Press Building and the McAllen Building in Boston, the Blackstone Power Plant renovation in Cambridge, the Atrium School in Watertown, the Theater Group Retreat in Maine, and the Trampoline and Willow Garden in Chaumont Sur-Loire, France. All of these projects have received design awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects or its Boston chapter.
Prior to the formation of Landworks Studio, Blier apprenticed in a range of professional practices that included periods in the offices of the SWA Group, Payette Associates, and Martha Schwartz, Inc., where he worked on such projects as the Jacob Javitz Plaza in New York, the HUD Plaza in Washington, and Gifu Housing in Japan, among others.
Blier earned degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. For the past 10 years, he has been a design critic at Harvard and the coordinator for its first semester core program. Blier also has taught studios at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Other speakers in the URI Landscape Architecture Lecture Series are Ben Uyeda of Free Green on Feb. 18; URI Professor Angelo Simeoni on March 11; URI Professor Will Green on April 1; and Michael Manfredi of Weiss/Manfredi on April 22. All talks begin at 7 p.m. in Weaver Auditorium of the URI Coastal Institute in Kingston.
The URI Landscape Architecture series is co-sponsored by the College of the Environment and Life Sciences, the Rhode Island chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Rhode Island Nursery and Landscape Association, and Gates Leighton & Associates. For more information about the series, contact the URI Department of Landscape Architecture at 874-2983 or Professor Will Green at wagre@uri.edu.